Now that they're teetering on the edge of lotteryland, Richard Jefferson has revised -- updated, really -- the mission statement.

"We've just got to keep battling and keep fighting, and understand it's going to come down to the last week," the Nets forward said of his team's playoff possibilities. "It's going to come down to the last week for both conferences."

The "last week"?

What happened to "the last game"?

"Yeah," he said with a big grin. "It keeps stretching out."

Well, put this in your brain and stretch it: The Nets are three games behind in the loss column with eight games to play.

"Hey, crazier things have happened," Jefferson replied.

Such as what? Dewey versus Truman?

"Ooo, good example," he said. "But it's happened, and it can happen again."

This is not likely to be one of those times, however, and even the Insane Optimist knows it.

The Nets are 31-43.

The Atlanta Hawks are 33-40 after yesterday's victory over the Knicks, and they have another can't-miss opportunity to pick up a "W" tomorrow at Memphis.

If the Hawks get that one, it sets the magic number at six to clinch the eighth and final playoff berth in the East.

From there, the Hawks would only have to go 3-5 over their last eight games -- which is their worst-case scenario, with three gimmes still on their schedule (Indy, Knicks, Miami) -- and the Nets would have to go 6-2 just to pull even and trigger the tiebreaker.

News flash: The Nets are not going to win six of eight.

Not with six playoff teams remaining on their schedule.

In short, this is a mountain they are facing.

"It is," Josh Boone conceded. "We got a tough road ahead, a tough schedule. If we play offense like we did, we have a chance. And if we play defense like we did, I don't know. There were stretches when we played good, and stretches when we didn't."

Yes, defense continues to be a problem: The Nets have yielded 110 points or more in eight of their last 10 games, which negates much of what is right with the team. They have become incapable of sustaining a defensive effort, particularly in the fourth quarters, which has wasted a very strong stretch of games by Vince Carter, Devin Harris, and Boone himself.

"Yeah, well, we just got to keep working," Harris said. "We got some more chances. We got, what, nine games left? We got to make the most of those nine games and see what happens."

Nobody had the heart to tell him that he only has eight games left.

Regardless, they are going to tune out those who believe that their chances are unrealistic.

"That's their opinion," Carter said. "We'll play this thing out to the last day. I'm going to do everything I can personally, and hopefully I can get everyone on board just to fight it out and find a way. It's not mathematically impossible, so until it is, we still have a chance."

Notes: The Nets finished the season with an 8-22 record against the Western Conference. Just two years ago, they were 16-14. ... Jefferson has 1,695 points this year, which is the sixth-highest total for a season in franchise history (four more points than Drazen Petrovic's 1,691 in 1991-92). Carter set the single-season mark with 2,070 points two years ago.